


Rex ex Machina

by StrictlyNoFrills



Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, Female Bilbo Baggins, Female Nori, Female Ori, Inspired by The Italian Job (2003), Mechanic Fili
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-26
Updated: 2020-11-13
Packaged: 2021-02-27 09:01:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 12,025
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22424485
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StrictlyNoFrills/pseuds/StrictlyNoFrills
Summary: If they're going to pull this heist off, they're going to need a little help.Luckily - or unluckily - Thorin has two very talented nephews.
Relationships: Belladonna Took & Nori, Belladonna Took & Thorin Oakenshield, Bilbo Baggins & Thorin Oakenshield, Bilbo Baggins/Fíli, Fem!Bilbo/Fili
Comments: 94
Kudos: 93





	1. Part I

**Author's Note:**

> It's not Fili Friday and this is not the Mechanic Fili fic I've been working on (Yes, there is one in the works.), but I was watching The Itallian Job (2003) today, and I got inspired.
> 
> Stay tuned for more Mechanic Fili content, and if you'd like to see similar things, feel free to check out my Tumblr page late on Thursday nights and on Fili Fridays: https://www.tumblr.com/dashboard
> 
> There's even an artist on there who's been creating Mechanic Fili art. Because, yeah. This is a thing now.
> 
> And if you're looking for other Fili fics, be sure to check out ISeeFire and Agent_Snark, who are both fantastic. If you do drop by their Ao3 pages and read their work, be sure to drop them a line in the comments section and let them know you enjoyed it. Comments give us writers life. :)

Two young men in tight, sleeveless shirts and low-riding, slightly worn jeans entered the garage, one with dark hair and eyes, and an easy, loping gait, and the other with a full mane of bright blonde hair and a bit of a swagger, and Bilbo felt an unexpected jolt of heat at the sight of them.

She nearly reached up to check that her mouth was still closed and drool hadn’t started coming out when she realized that there were geometric tattoos interspersed with other images up and down their arms, similar to the ones Thorin and Dwalin had.

Having grown up knowing Thorin and Dwalin as her mother’s associates, she was inured to the sight of the dark lines and swirls over the planes of their upper and forearms – mostly – but these two men were closer to her own age, and she was not prepared to see them here, in the place where all their hopes and plans from the past six months were slowly but surely coming to fruition.

Thorin stepped out of the office and looked at the boys with a rare smile. “Boys. You’re right on time.” He turned towards Bilbo and put his hand on her shoulder, gesturing with the other hand towards the two newcomers. “Bilbo, I’d like you to meet Fili and Kili, my nephews.”

She stepped gently away from Thorin and forward to shake their hands, striving to keep a pleasantly neutral expression on her face. Their hands were warm and dry, covered with callouses which rasped against the smooth skin of her own hand in a way that sent a delicate shiver down her spine.

“Thorin says you need to have some bodywork done,” the blonde one said, his voice quiet but with a distinct scratch to it that spoke of stolen moments with a cigarette caught between his lips.

“I – yes, I do.” Her brain caught up with her mouth, which given the circumstances, felt like a minor miracle, and she backtracked. “I mean, we do. We need to have some bodywork done. On the cars.”

His lips curved upward in a slow, warm smirk, and Bilbo wanted to die on the spot.

When Thorin had proposed that they bring his nephews in to do the work on the mini coopers, no one had warned Bilbo that they were hot.

Why had no one warned her that they were hot?

Thorin shot her an openly amused look and then took pity on her. “Why don’t I show you two what you’ll be working on?”

Ori rose from the chair behind the little desk they’d set up for her so that she would have a place to work whatever magic she did on her laptop that was so small it looked more like a kid’s toy, or would if it wasn’t so sleek and shiny. She stepped up behind Bilbo and swatted her upside the head.

“Ow!” Bilbo hissed, more from shock than pain, though Ori had a surprisingly strong swat for such a tiny woman who spent all her time indoors, hunched over a computer screen. “Ori, what the hell was that for?”

She raised her eyebrows at Bilbo, entirely unapologetic. “Mind on the job and _not_ on my cousins, yeah?”

Rubbing one hand over the spot where her friend’s hand had hit sheepishly, Bilbo nodded. “I suppose I deserved that.”

Ori patted her on the shoulder with a slightly pitying look in her eyes. “Don’t feel bad. They have that effect on everyone.”

“Everyone?” Bilbo asked, feeling slightly crestfallen and then shaking her head at herself. Of course, they did. One look at them and she had gone weak in the knees. Had she honestly thought there was the slightest chance that she was the only one?

Any ideas she might have entertained about getting to know one of them on a more personal level once this business with Smaug was resolved dissipated like so much smoke, because what were the odds that either of them was single?

“Everyone,” Ori confirmed. “Not that Fili gives any of them the time of day,” she added knowingly.

“Oh?”

“He’s far too concerned with finishing his master’s degree to pay attention to all the empty-headed girls trying to fling themselves at him.”

“Fili. That’s… the blonde one, right?” Beauty and brains. Bilbo was in so, so much trouble.

“Right.”

“What is it he’s studying?”

“Metallurgical engineering.”

Her heart sank a little. What would she, an English major, be able to say to interest someone like that?

Ori must have seen her face fall because she said, “Chin up, Bilbo. You crack safes for a living. What could be more interesting than that?”

Bilbo rolled her eyes. “You make me sound like my mother. I’ve never stolen a thing in my life.”

“Well, that’s all about to change, isn’t it?”

She held up her index finger. “One time. I’m doing this _one_ _time_ , to get back at the man who murdered my mother. One heist does not a thief make.”

“That’s a bit of a shame. You’d look lovely in one of those outfits you always see professional thieves wearing in the movies.”

Bilbo whirled around and met a pair of ocean blue eyes framed by thick eyebrows and bright blonde curls. That same smirk from before danced at the corners of his lips, and Bilbo felt her breath hitch in her chest.

She swallowed roughly. Trying to cover her reaction, she put a hand over her heart and told him, “You startled me. You should come with a warning label.” She glanced down at his heavy, thick-soled black boots. “How did you even move that quietly in those shoes?”

He grinned at her conspiratorially. “Trade secret.”

Casting about for something else to say, she asked, “Where’s your brother?”

“He’s already working on the plans for what we’ll need to do to those mini coopers.” Fili gave her a long, searching look. “I don’t have to ask what it is you all are going to use them for. I grew up hearing about how Smaug killed your mother and robbed the Company. But tell me: Are you sure you know what you’re doing?”

Bilbo sucked in a sharp breath, glancing around and wondering when Ori had slipped away, leaving she and Fili alone. “Honestly? I have no idea what I’m doing.”

She wasn’t sure why she felt compelled to tell him the truth. Sure, he was gorgeous, but she had met handsome men before and not spilled all her secrets. Not even to Thorin, and that man had a face that could make angels weep. Still, there was something about Fili that had gotten a hold on her.

“But for all that my mother was a thief, she had a heart of gold, and she deserved so much better than what Smaug did to her. So, even though it will never bring her back, I’m taking back what he stole. And then I’m really going to make him pay.”

Fili held his hand out to her for the second time that day. “I know Kili and I were only brought in to work on the cars, but I’ll help you in any way I can.”

“Are you sure you want to be that involved? This could get dangerous.”

“I did two tours in Afghanistan before I came back stateside and started college. I think I can handle it.” Two tours? He must be a little older than she’d thought. Then again, his entire family seemed to age differently than the rest of the world.

She eyed his hand for a moment, wary of the way she’d felt when he had touched her before, but then she took it and gave a single, firm shake. She felt that same shiver from before work its way down her spine and resigned herself to spending the next few months with a permanent flush and an elevated heartrate.

Oh, well. There were worse things.


	2. Interlude I

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Posting this part and the next early because there's... no Fili. It seems kinda wrong to post updates on Fili Friday when there's not Fili to be had.
> 
> The song playing in this chapter is _It Never Entered My Mind_ by Miles Davis.

Jazz oozed from invisible speakers and sighed off of the walls of the dimly lit room. Lush, thick cream carpet, luxuriously plump seat cushions, and diligently bleached white table cloths dampened the light clinks and clunks of silverware scraping plates and glasses being raised from and returned to table tops.

A large, calloused hand reached down toward Bilbo as she set down her own glass, and she took that hand and allowed its owner to pull her up from her chair with a smile.

Together, she and her companion stepped out onto the dance floor as they did every year, once a year. She stepped close, resting her head on his chest, and relaxed, knowing he was safe and would never lead her wrong.

“You’ve grown as enchanting as your mother,” he said, his deep voice a familiar rumble in under her ears. She’d known that voice her entire life.

She huffed a little laugh and lifted her head to peer up at him. “No one is as enchanting as my mother was,” she said, quirking one eyebrow. “No one ever will be.”

“We’ll have to agree to disagree on that,” he replied, his tone as amiable as it ever could be, with a slight paternal air.

She wished more people could see this side of him. She knew his family did on occasion, but after her mother had been killed, this side of him had come out less and less.

Most people probably considered her self-appointed guardian angel more of a gargoyle, for all that he was more beautiful than most of the men who graced the covers of air-brushed magazines.

Gently, he spun her out and then back in before leaning down to put his lips to her ear, “I have something to tell you.”

“Well, that sounds ominous,” she said lightly. Usually, if he had something to say, he just came out and said it, no matter how unpleasant it might sound.

“Nori has a lead on Smaug.”

She froze, the music fading out of her perception and the soft blue ambiance of the restaurant whiting out. Leaning into his chest again, she hoped his broad shoulders and unfair height would hide her reaction from the other patrons.

“She’s sure?”

“I wouldn’t have told you if she wasn’t.

That was true. And Nori was nothing if not thorough, especially after losing Belladonna, her partner in crime.

“Alright. Where is he, then?”

“He resurfaced here, in L.A.”

“Would he really be that stupid?”

“It’s been fifteen years, Bilbo. I doubt Smaug expects that any of us would still be looking for him. He never did understand.”

“Understand what?”

“That while we were a business, we were also a family.”

Her guardian angel had certainly never forgotten that. He had made it a point to be there for Bilbo throughout the years following her mother’s death.

Every school event. Every graduation – including the one where she “graduated” from middle school, which had been so banal and annoying that even she had wanted to skip it, but there he was, camera in hand, as though he were her father and not simply the friend and employer of her dead mother.

Her actual father hadn’t been sure what to think of having her mother’s best friend so involved in Bilbo’s life when it was a mission for his company that got her killed in the first place, but Bilbo had refused to give up that connection. He had understood her mother in a way only one other person ever had, and Bilbo held onto both of them as tightly as she could.

“Well. It sounds like we’ll have a chance to explain that to him.”

He sighed expansively, his shoulders slumping. “If I were a better man, I would tell you to stay out of this.”

“You are one of the best men I know, Thorin. But there is nothing – _nothing_ – that could keep me from making that bastard pay for what he did. Not even you.”


	3. Interlude II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Last part with no Fili. I promise.

The guards led her into the same room where she had met with her lawyer a time or two – her father’s lawyer, actually, but that was a minor detail. One guard pulled out her chair and released her from her cuffs. She offered him a warm smile in thanks as she made herself comfortable and watched in delight as his ears and cheeks turned pink. Her other guard, a handsome but stern-faced woman in her late thirties, rolled her eyes at her young co-worker and dragged him out.

She watched them leave and then turned her gaze towards her two visitors. One was a tall, slender, refined man, with dark hair and piercing blue eyes, and a nose just sharp and long enough to make his face interesting, rather than blandly attractive. The other was a red-headed woman with sharp green eyes and a studied languor to her movements, as though they could hide the sense of a cat living in a world of mice that screamed out of every pore… Though perhaps it took one to know one.

It was silent save for the humming of the fluorescent lights and the lackadaisical churning of the air conditioning.

She kept smiling and waited.

The man broke first.

“Miss Took-“

“Belladonna, please,” she said, grinning at the gentleman winningly.

The woman at his side raised her eyebrows and offered her a sardonic smirk.

“Miss Took,” he insisted, looking down at a file before him on the steel table around which they sat. “Do you know why you are here today?”

She favored him with a pout before saying, “I was told you were here to make a proposal which, if accepted, would shorten my sentence to time served and secure my release.”

“Yes, that is correct.”

“Why would you do that?”

Instead of answering her questions, the other woman pushed the file closer to Belladonna.

“You’re an unusual woman, Miss Took,” she observed. “You never keep the items or money you steal. The people living in the projects in this part of California hail you as some kind of modern-day Robin Hood in a skirt. Why?”

She raised her eyebrows and tossed her dark brown curls. “Well, that’s just silly. I never wear a skirt on a heist.”

“Miss Took,” the man said, a slight warning in his tone. She would have believed it if he’d been able to stifle the slight quirk at the corner of his mouth before she’d caught it.

She sighed. “I don’t _need_ the money. They do.”

“So, why not donate?” the woman asked lazily.

“All my money is in trust until I turn twenty-one. My father is a sensible, responsible man, ma’am. I live comfortably, but not _that_ comfortably. Besides. It’s not about keeping things. It’s about getting away with them.”

“What did I tell you, Thorin?” the woman asked, finally allowing a real smile to cross her lips. “She’s perfect.”

Belladonna shook her head. “I enjoy a compliment as much as the next person, but perfect for what, exactly? What would I be doing for you people?”

“Miss Took, we’d like for you to be part of a company – a team – we’re putting together. Someone who could step in when law enforcement doesn’t have the resources, or their hands are tied by search and seizure laws.”

She tried not to visibly react, but from the triumphant light in the green eyes across from her, Belladonna had a feeling she failed rather spectacularly. “So. So, let me get this straight: if I agree to work for you, then I can not only do what I do, I can also get paid for it and skip the unplanned vacations in lockup after?”

The woman outright grinned at her and held a slender, unvarnished hand out. “Nori Pullman. You play your cards right, Miss Took, and you’ll never see the inside of a prison cell again. Unless, of course, you’re robbing it.”

Belladonna eyed that hand, wondering if this all might be too good to be true. But she trusted her gut, and her gut was telling her that this deal was the best thing that could ever happen to her.

She shook Nori’s hand. “I’ll do it. Now, will you _please_ call me Belladonna?”

(She was wrong, but she wouldn’t find that out until several years later, when she fell in love with a fussy, fresh-faced young attorney who occasionally helped the company finagle their way through sticky legal matters that were above her paygrade, and the ridiculous man proposed to her by building her a house, and about a year after their wedding, she gave birth to a beautiful baby girl. _That_. That was the very best thing.)


	4. Part II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Happy Fili Friday, my lovelies!
> 
> As promised, this chapter contains Fili.
> 
> … A _lot_ of Fili.

She just wanted to practice her craft in a quiet place where no one would be around to pay her any attention or try to talk to her.

In no way had she expected to be visually assaulted.

Assault: an attack that puts a person in fear of imminent harm.

Currently, she was in fear of losing her life due to _choking on her own tongue_.

It was a sticky, hot, humid night; the kind that made her want to hop in the shower and stay there for hours on end, because at least that way she would be hot and wet by choice. The air conditioning in the garage wasn’t the greatest, but they had fans that more than made up for the air conditioning’s mediocrity.

She went to flip the switch that would turn the fans on, which was how she wound up here, unable to breathe because her traitorous tongue was blocking her airway.

What an ignominious way to die.

At least the last thing she would ever see was beautiful. Then again, had her eyes not been assaulted in this manner, she would not be in imminent danger of losing her life.

… It was possible her brain was going in circles. But who could blame her?

Nothing could have prepared her for the sight of Fili Durin, his back shining with sweat, the muscles shifting subtly as he worked. Raised, slightly reddened patches of skin interspersed with tattoos decorated his body from the base of his neck to the top of his jeans.

They might go lower, but Bilbo wasn’t about to try and find out one way or another.

A strangled sound escaped from her throat at this thought, and Fili’s hands paused, his back straightened slowly, and the tendons in his arm shifted as he tightened his grip on the wrench in his right hand. He turned and his entire body relaxed as soon as his eyes fell on her, but Bilbo felt as she thought she might if she ever had a stroke.

His back was gorgeous, but his front.

Was she wheezing? She was pretty sure she was wheezing.

“Bilbo. I didn’t hear you come in.”

“Yeah, I’m. Um. I’m really quiet. Thorin says I have little mouse feet.”

He peered at her carefully, squinting in concern. “Are you alright? You don’t have asthma, do you?”

Well, she might now. Those abs were just. _Wow_.

 _So articulate, Bilbo_ , she snarked at herself before remembering that Fili had asked her a question, and he seemed fairly anxious about the answer.

“I. No. I’m just – it’s really hot in here, isn’t it?” she asked, her voice gradually getting higher. “That’s actually why I came over here. Has anyone shown you where the switch is for the fans?”

“No, not yet. If you wouldn’t mind, though, that would be great,” he said, visibly relieved.

“Right.” _Move, feet. Eyes, stop staring_. “It’s right over here.” She led him over to the far wall, where a set of switches in a switch plate stuck out ever so slightly. “See?” she asked, flipping the middle switch, which prompted the fans to slowly come to life. “Now you’ll know for the next time you decide to stay here late and do – whatever it is you’ve been doing to the cars all by yourself. Where is your brother, anyway?”

“Skype date with his girlfriend. We were all in the same unit before he and I were both honorably discharged. She’s still active.”

Her brow furrowed. “I didn’t realize relatives could be in the same unit.”

Fili shrugged. “It’s certainly not the norm, but it does happen from time to time.”

She thought about the scars littering his back. “What happened to you?”

“An IED exploded. Caught us both.” He glanced away, for the first time looking faintly self-conscious. “Sorry you had to see the scars. If I’d known anyone else was going to be here, I would’ve kept my shirt on. It’s just so damn _hot_ though.” Looking up at the fans, which were moving at a good clip now, he said, “I could probably stand to put my shirt back on now, though.”

Her brain gave a funny little lurch. “Wait, what? You think the scars bother me?”

His ocean blue eyes flew down to hers. “You seemed a bit bothered by them earlier.”

She wheezed again and closed her eyes at her own ineptitude. “I’m sure I did,” she said, tone dripping with self-deprecation. “But not in the way you seem to think.” She forced herself to open her eyes then and maintain eye contact. People could lie if they looked you in the eye, but it was certainly harder. And she imagined Fili had learned a thing or two about reading people. That sounded like a useful skill to have while risking life and limb in the service of Uncle Sam. “Fili, you are. Incredible. You… Never for a single second let anyone make you believe that you are anything less than the most beautiful man ever to walk the face of the earth.”

There. She could probably boil water with the heat from her cheeks alone and she would dearly love to find the nearest exit and disappear for however long she could get away with before someone else in their little band of co-conspirators came to drag her out of her self-imposed exile, but at least she’d managed to speak her piece. Hopefully he would take it to heart. She wasn’t sure how well she would handle having to repeat iterations of this conversation.

He stared at her for several moments and then he blinked and tilted his head. His face cleared, and his lips even tilted up in that smile that made her heart do a tap routine in her chest. “Well, then. Mind if I leave the shirt off? At least until it cools down a bit more.”

She coughed and sputtered and then nodded, waving him off with a faint, “No, no, I’m fine. It’s fine. You being shirtless is. Fine. It’s all very. Fine. I’m just going to be –“ She waved in the vague direction of the various vaults she’d had brought in for practice a few days ago. “Over there.”

In no way was Bilbo fleeing from that low, raspy chuckle that made her insides feel like molten lava.

She was making a _tactical_ _retreat_.

As she reached the safe farthest from the mini fleet, she plucked her phone from her pocket, unwound her earbuds, picked a playlist, and willed her hands to stop shaking.

An hour later, she hadn’t managed to crack a single digit of the code.

She glanced over to where Fili still tinkered away at one of the cars – a cherry red that probably matched the color of her cheeks, with black racing stripes. Her eyes roved the lines of his body and she swallowed roughly.

Worth it.

* * *

A few days later, Thorin got a call that put everyone on edge.

According to Beorn, one of the contacts left from before her mother was killed and Thorin, Nori, and Dwalin made the decision to rebrand the company as a security agency, rather than a company that recovered stolen items for their owners when law enforcement failed to come through for one reason or another, someone had killed one of the Wizards.

From the sounds of things, Beorn initially suspected that Thorin was behind the attack, as it related to the gold Smaug shot Bilbo’s mother over. Hundreds of thousands of Spanish doubloons which an old family of the Spanish aristocracy had managed to hold onto for centuries, which had initially been stolen by honest-to-goodness modern day pirates from the US.

Bilbo had met Smaug once, as a little girl.

There had been nothing about the man to give away the monster hiding inside. His fair skin was flawless. His eyes held a multitude of colors, but no apparent malice, and he moved with an almost feline grace.

He’d smiled at her and ruffled her hair with his long, dexterous fingers, (and foolish, naïve child that she was, she’d smiled up at him with a smile that was short a few front teeth and _laughed_ ).

The same fingers he used to hold the gun and pull the trigger that released an entire clip into her mother’s chest when she tried to prevent him from absconding with the gold doubloons the day they retrieved them from the pirates.

The same fingers he had more likely than not used to shoot Radagast Brown, who worked as a fence for the Wizards, a group of men heavily entrenched in the intelligence community, dancing between government ops and deals with the criminal underbelly.

Thorin finished explaining to the room at large and then pulled something up on his phone. He jabbed at the surface and the dial tone rang out through the garage.

“You picked a terrible time to start slipping, Nori.”

“Did I?” asked the voice on the other end of the line.

Thorin closed his eyes. “You knew?”

“Thorin, when are you going to accept the fact that the NSA knows everything? If I wanted to, I could show you a picture of what you look like first thing in the morning when you’re swatting at the alarm button on your phone.”

He snorted. “Please don’t.”

“Aw, but you look so cute with bedhead.”

“Nori. Why did you not tell me when it happened?”

“Maybe because I have to at least _look_ like I’m playing by the rules?”

“Please. The people who hired you knew before you even interviewed for the position that you’ve never encountered a rule you wouldn’t break.”

“True,” Nori replied, sounding more than a little proud of herself. “Regardless, Smaug killing Brown works in our favor. Now the Wizards have an ax to grind, and we have the video.”

“You have the _video_?” Bilbo blurted, unable to stop herself.

“Oh, darling. Of course, we do. Smaug and Brown both had their phones out, and Brown had his laptop running.” She _tsk_ ed. “Amateur mistake these days. You never know who might be watching.”

“So, we’ve got him?” Bilbo asked, hardly daring to believe it. Once they took back the gold and turned it and Smaug over to the authorities, and shared the video from Brown’s murder, that was it. Smaug would go down, possibly for good.

“We’ve got him, kiddo.”

Her legs didn’t want to hold her up anymore. She glanced around for somewhere to sit and eventually decided to sink to the floor. No reason not to. The jeans she was wearing today couldn’t get any rattier, and almost every person in the garage had known her since she was a child and seen her doing far more embarrassing things. The exceptions were Fili and Kili, but by this point she’d done a pretty thorough job of mortifying herself in front of them as well.

Dully, she noted that Fili’s boots were headed her way. They stopped to her left and then he folded his legs in a pretzel and after screwing off the top, he passed her a bottle of water. She blinked at it and then raised her head jerkily up to blink at him in much the same manner.

There was nothing but patience in those ocean eyes when she looked into them, and the dull ringing she hadn’t even registered in her ears faded away.

“Go on,” he said quietly.

She brought the bottle to her lips obediently and began to take small sips. The water helped. It was icy and pure, flavored with electrolytes, and the smooth coldness making its way over her tongue and down her throat was a pleasant shock to her body, shaking her out of her strange fugue. She gulped the rest of it and then screwed the cap back on. “Thanks.”

“Mind if I join you?” Kili asked.

She glanced up at him where he stood on her other side, and she nodded, offering him a wan smile.

He gave her a much wider one in return and sank down to the floor, sandwiching her in between him and his brother. A moment later, Ori plopped herself down in front of Bilbo with a groan that was mostly for show. “You young-uns make this look so easy,” she griped with a teasing glint in her eyes.

Bilbo could _hear_ Kili’s eyeroll. “Oh, like you’re so ancient. You’re not even ten years older than us, Ori. Hardly old enough to be moaning about how much better the three of us have it.”

Ori raised her eyebrows almost to the fringe of her pixie cut. “Just you wait,” she warned. “Once you hit thirty, it’s all downhill from there.”

Leaning forward, Bilbo rested her head on Ori’s knee and felt her friend’s fingers begin carding through her hair. She wasn’t stupid. Now that she had her wits about her again, she knew they were sniping at each other to distract her. It was sweet, but not quite enough.

“Hey, Kili, have you heard from Tauriel lately?”

“Last night, actually. Why?”

“Did she have any more stories about that crazy CO of hers?”

“Only about fifty.”

She heard Fili scoff quietly. “You only went seven days between this call and the one before. There’s no way Greenwood could have gotten into that many scrapes in seven days.”

“Fili, why would you even say something like that?” Kili asked, sounding scandalized. “Now he’s going to do something a million times worse, and Tauriel is going to have to be the one to save his crazy, beanpole ass.”

Bilbo let the sounds of her friends’ voices wash over her, occasionally letting out a few gasps and giggles at the tales of Kili’s girlfriend having to save the son of Louisiana’s governor from his own overinflated sense of heroism and tendency to climb things that absolutely should not be climbed by anyone, anywhere, ever, and imagined the look on Smaug’s face when he realized that his days of getting away with murder – and a king’s ransom – were finally over.

They were so close, now. So, so close.

 _Soon_ , her heart crooned with a vicious, anticipatory beat beneath her left breast. _Soon_.


	5. Part III

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Important Request:** If you all could please refrain from leaving detailed summaries in the bookmarks section, I would greatly appreciate it. Please give everyone a chance to find out what happens for themselves. Thank you! ♥
> 
> Eheh. As you can see, this fic keeps growing. This was supposed to be the final chapter. Actually, if I'm being completely honest, this was only ever supposed to be three chapters.
> 
> Whoops!
> 
> Anyway, happy Fili Friday, my lovelies!

“Guard up, kiddo,” Nori said in another gentle reproach after Bilbo failed to block a blow for the fourth time in a row. Thank goodness for headgear and boxing gloves, even if they made her feel as though her skin would melt off. Without them, she would be a mass of bruises at this point. Not exactly ideal for tomorrow’s plans.

Nori studied her through narrowed eyes and then shook her head with a sigh. “I think that’s enough for today. Your head’s obviously too far up in the clouds for you to take this seriously.”

Bilbo’s shoulders slumped. “Sorry, Nori. Really. I’m not trying to waste your time. I know you could be doing a lot of other things right now.”

The disapproving frown Nori leveled at her shut Bilbo up in a hurry. “No time spent with you is ever a waste.”

She stripped off her protective gear and stepped out of the ring, going to grab a towel from her workout bag where it sat on one of the benches. She fished out Bilbo’s own and tossed it to her. As they both wiped the sweat from their faces, necks, and shoulders, Nori asked, “So, what is it that has you so distracted tonight, anyway?”

This was a kindness, allowing Bilbo to keep her attention turned elsewhere, or at least to pretend to do so, rather than forcing her to look at her godmother while she grappled with her thoughts, because Nori could read her every thought like an open book just by looking at her. Bilbo was grateful for it, but at the same time, a part of her chafed at it. Everyone had been coddling her since she got a bit light-headed a few weeks ago after hearing about that video of Smaug killing Brown. Even Fili and Kili, though they weren’t much older than she was.

At least they had the sense to be less overt about it, bless them both.

“Is it about tomorrow, or is it about a certain cousin of mine?”

Bilbo stilled and then began to fold her towel with precise movements. Who cared if it was going straight in the wash basket after she got home? She liked for things to be neat and tidy, and so did her father. It was the principle of the thing… and perhaps she was stalling. Maybe.

“You have so many cousins. Which one are we talking about this time?”

“Bilbo.”

She rolled her neck from side to side to try and relieve some tension and then sighed, giving in. “Why haven’t I met them until now?” She went to place her folded up towel back in her gym back and pulled out her water bottle from one of the side pockets.

“You have, actually,” Nori said, causing Bilbo to choke on a sip of water.

After coughing and sputtering for a while, she wheezed, “Excuse me? I think I’d remember it if I had ever met the two of them before.”

“And by ‘them’, you mean Fili,” Nori said slyly.

Bilbo made an indignant noise in the back of her throat. “I mean both of them. Kili is my friend, too. Besides that, he’s hardly forgettable.”

“Alright, alright. No need to get so defensive,” Nori drawled.

Ugh. Bilbo adored Nori, but just. Ugh. She wondered if this was how it would have been to talk to her mother about guys if her mother had lived long enough to see Bilbo through this part of her life.

Probably.

“Regardless, yes, you have met the boys before. At my wedding, in fact, a few weeks before everything fell apart. Dis and Vili were on leave, and they were able to bring the boys with them to attend the wedding.”

Bilbo shook her head. “I don’t…”

Everything about that time was a blur. She preferred it that way, not touching the memories too firmly. It was safer to dance around them.

Never had she intentionally drawn them up, but she closed her eyes and tried to do so now. Bilbo had a few vague memories of being Nori’s junior bridesmaid, and the sense-memory of wrinkling her nose at Dwalin as she laughed because he had finally shaved off his mohawk for the occasion, and he even wore a tux, irritable as he had been about it.

Thorin, naturally, was the best man, and her mother had been the matron of honor. Ori had been a bridesmaid, suffering all through the wedding photos by not showing her teeth because she had braces, and Dori had walked her middle sister down the aisle and given her away, sniffling delicately all the way. Her hair had still been the same vivid red as her sisters’ back then.

Flashes of standing on Thorin’s toes, dancing with him at the reception, and then –

Wait.

A blonde boy, a few years older than Bilbo, asking if he could cut in.

Thorin, silently asking her for permission and then bowing out with a proud, indulgent smile.

“He danced with me,” she said faintly.

“Fili? Yes, he did. And if Bofur hadn’t been three sheets to the wind by that point, we’d even have pictures of it.”

“Well, you really should have known better than to hire him as your photographer,” Bilbo said wryly. “If it isn’t explosive, flammable, or shiny, it’s not exciting enough to hold Bofur’s attention for long.”

“Oh, I know. But Thorin and Dwalin have this thing about keeping things in the family – and if you take this chance to joke about our kids being born with extra fingers and toes-“

“ _You_ joke about your kids having extra appendages,” Bilbo retorted. “Even though you and Dwalin are so far removed from each other on the family tree I can’t even begin to explain it to anyone if they ask. And I haven’t seen any evidence of you two having kids any time soon, so it’s a moot point anyway.”

Nori looked shifty for moment, and for once, Bilbo was almost certain it wasn’t intentional. She took note of the slip before filing it away to examine later.

“Right. Anyway, you asked me why you hadn’t met the boys until now… A lot of it has to do with Dis being in the JAG corps and Vili being a general, dragging their kids all over kingdom come. But some of it… None of us were at our best after losing your mom, kiddo. Me and Thorin least of all. We tried to keep it together when we were around you, but the rest of the time, we were all floundering. I don’t know what I would have done without Dwalin, and Thorin… Well, he didn’t really have anyone. Dis and Vili decided that wasn’t something their boys needed to see, and by the time we managed to pull ourselves together again, we’d all drifted pretty far apart. I know Thorin would go and visit them from time to time on whatever base they were stationed at, but nobody thought it was a good idea for the three of you two be around all of us when things were so strained. Then the boys got old enough to enlist, and then they got hurt, and time just… got away from us.”

“So, why now? We could have asked anybody. Why drag them into all of this?”

“Oh, we didn’t. Ori apparently mentioned something to the two of them about Smaug resurfacing, and they insisted that if there was anything they could do, we should let them know.”

“Why? This isn’t their fight.”

“Smaug tore our family apart.”

Bilbo jumped and whirled about, catching sight of Fili and Kili, both wearing tight, sleeveless shirts and loose sweatpants, workout bags slung over their shoulders.

“Of course, this is our fight,” Kili concluded.

Bilbo glanced between the two brothers. “How long have you two been standing there? And what are you doing here? It’s late.”

“And yet you’re both here,” Fili pointed out. “We only just caught the end, really.”

“Well,” Bilbo said, motioning towards the boxing ring, “the ring is all yours. I’m off to try and get some sleep before tomorrow.”

“You sure you don’t want to stay awhile?” Kili asked, grinning cheekily. “You can watch me hand Fili his ass.”

Fili grabbed his brother in a headlock, barely straining to hold him as he began to struggle. “Pretty sure it’ll be the other way around, little brother.”

With a grunt, Kili struck out with his foot, catching Fili in the shin. Fili just smiled and tightened his grip.

“I hate you,” Kili grumbled, still fighting to get free.

“No, you don’t.”

Nori and Bilbo exchanged a sardonic look.

“Night, boys,” Nori said. “Try to leave each other in one piece.”

“Goodnight,” the brothers chorused, watching as Bilbo and Nori walked out of the gym kept for employees and family members of Thorin and Dwalin’s security company. They stepped out into the corridor that would lead them out to the main part of the building and walked the rest of the way to the front entrance in a comfortable silence, save for a brief conversation with one of the night guards who had been with the company for years.

“I’m glad you came down here, Nori,” Bilbo said when they reached their cars, both parked side by side in the parking lot which was well-lit by lamp posts. When they had designed the place, Thorin and Dwalin decided to take no chances.

“Oh, darling. I wouldn’t miss this for the world. Besides, I had about a million days of leave saved up, and I do like to see my husband’s face in person from time to time.”

“Instead of watching him on some screen?” Bilbo asked, arching an eyebrow at her godmother sarcastically.

“Would I abuse my clearance that way?” Nori asked, placing one hand over her heart and affecting an appalled look.

“Absolutely. A fact about which you are very proud.”

Nori kept a straight face for a few more beats and then gave Bilbo a grin that would not be out of place on a shark. “Yeah, I am.” She held her arms out. “Come here, kiddo.”

Bilbo stepped into Nori’s arms and tucked her face into the crook of her neck, one of the few things that made being so much shorter than everyone else more bearable. Nori held her tight and placed a kiss upon the top of her head.

“Love you. Try to get some good sleep tonight.”

“Love you, too.” She sighed. “And I’ll try, but I make no promises. You do the same, okay?”

“Oh, I have an excellent way to ensure that I sleep soundly tonight,” Nori said, pulling back to smirk at Bilbo with obvious mischief. “I haven’t had time alone with Dwalin in months. We have some… catching up to do.”

Bilbo winced and scrunched up her nose. “Oh, gross.”

Nori cackled. “Goodnight, Bilbo. Sweet dreams.”

“Yeah, not likely. Not after that mental image,” Bilbo grumbled, waving Nori off.

She opened her driver’s side door under Nori’s watchful eyes and got in, putting the key in the ignition and locking her doors. It wasn’t until Bilbo pulled out of her parking spot that Nori got in her own car. As Bilbo headed for the exit of the parking lot, she heard Nori’s engine come to life.

The drive home was quiet save for the faint strains of one of her mother’s old Dido CDs coming from her Mini Cooper’s speakers and the sounds of the wind rushing by her car.

She pulled into the driveway and opened one of the garage doors, eyeing her childhood home with tired relief. It was always good to come here at the end of a long day. She supposed that should be a given, considering that it was a sprawling, warmly colored, lovingly decorated affair, with warm lamps still shining to greet her even at this late hour, but it was not the many rooms or the beautiful architecture which called to her and welcomed her home. It was the memories of her mother, and the doting presence of her father, whom she found dozing on the living room couch when she tiptoed inside.

She found the remote on the coffee table and turned off the television, which was playing an old episode of Jeopardy. Setting down the remote, walked around to her father’s side and pressed a kiss to his temple.

“Dad,” she whispered. “Come on, dad. It’s time for you to go to bed.”

He snuffled and rolled his salt-and-pepper head of curls about the couch and then slowly opened his dark brown eyes, peering up at her. “Is that my Bilbo?” he asked, smiling warmly and still half-asleep.

She laughed softly. “Of course, it is. Who else would it be?”

He raised one hand and placed it upon her cheek lovingly. “You look so beautiful, my girl. So like your mother.”

Bilbo felt a pang at the reminder and bit her lip. She loved her father and she loved Thorin, but she wished sometimes they could say things like that without comparing her to her mother. For one thing, she would never be as beautiful as Belladonna Baggins. For another, she was Bilbo. Wholly and completely herself.

Shaking her head at those thoughts, she took his hand in hers gently, pulling it away from her face and using it to lever him up from the couch. “Come on, dad. Your neck won’t thank you if you stay here all night.”

“Are you alright, sweetheart?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. Are you?”

He patted the hand she was still holding with his free one as she walked with him to the eastern wing of the large ranch-style house, her feet treading over well-known, fluffy cream carpeting. “Don’t you worry about me.”

How could she not? Even after all these years, he was still pining after her mother, and likely always would. Losing her had aged him prematurely, adding grey hairs and lines to his features long before his peers. And he had the same perpetually lost look in his tired brown eyes that she saw in another, sharp blue set.

A question that always prodded at the back of her mind whenever she considered it, one that she refused to entertain fully, made itself known once again, and she shoved it down and away irritably. It was none of her business. And even if it were true, knowing wouldn’t make a bit of difference. Her mother was gone. Whatever may or may not have been when she was alive…

It didn’t matter.

She and her father arrived at the master bedroom, and she rose on her tiptoes to press a kiss to his weathered cheek. “Goodnight, dad. I love you.”

“As I love you, my Bilbo. Around the world and back. Sleep well, dear, and in case I don’t have a chance to see you before you leave, have a good day with your friends tomorrow.”

Guilt slammed into her with the force of a thousand of her godmother’s punches all at once. She gave her father the least shaky smile she could muster and let go of his hand, turning to walk away.

“Thanks, dad,” she tossed over her shoulder, cringing internally at the reminder of the lie she had told him about her plans for tomorrow. It was one of many she had told him over the last several months in an effort to avoid making him worry about her, and to avoid an argument.

She loved her father with every breath in her body, but she was not like him. He was content to mourn her mother quietly and eternally, while Bilbo burned with an undeniable need for justice. Her farther would never understand it, and she had no desire to ask him to try. Not now. Not when she was so close.

It took everything she had to keep her pace slow and relaxed, not wanting to alert her father to the fact that something was wrong. One of them should sleep well tonight, free of worry.

The trip to her room seemed even longer than normal, and she breathed a heavy sigh of relief when she finally reached it and was able to shut the door behind herself after flicking on the light. She leaned against it and locked the door, thumping her head back against the heavy, thick wood lightly. “Get over it, Bilbo. There’s nothing you can do about it now.”

She toed out of her workout shoes and pulled off her socks, tossing the socks in the hamper along with her towel from her workout bag. Then she padded into the bathroom adjoining her bedroom, her feet sinking into the lush carpeting. She was certain that if they could, her feet would give off little sighs of joy and relief at the soft landing.

Once she reached the bathroom, she flicked on the lights and turned the shower on hot and then peeled herself out of her still slightly sweat-damp tank top and leggings, along with her underthings. She folded those and set them aside, brushing her teeth long enough to ensure that they were clean and the water had heated sufficiently, and then she did her best to wash away the strain and the tension that had built up in her body, along with the tacky sweat.

She stayed under the steamy spray long enough that her fingers began to prune and she felt a bit faint, and then she turned the water off and stepped out, reaching for her white, fluffy terry-cloth bathrobe where it hung on one of the rungs on the wall closest to the shower. She wrapped herself up in the robe and reached for a towel to wipe her face free of moisture and then wrap up all of her dark, sodden curls.

Then she turned off the bathroom lights and walked from the bathroom and into her bedroom on slightly wobbly legs. Once there, she collapsed onto her mattress, waiting for the faint light-headedness to pass. When she felt strong enough, she rose and retrieved her phone from its little pocket in her gym bag and turned off her bedroom light before she laid down again, this time sliding under the covers. She set her the alarm on her phone for an hour she knew without a doubt was far too early for her father on a morning when he did not have to go in to his firm and set her phone down on her white wicker bedside table.

She wasn’t sure how long it took for sleep to finally grab hold of her, but she knew it was too long and that she would regret it come morning.

Morning.

 _The_ Morning of _The_ _Day_.

The entire reason she couldn’t sleep.

Over and over, she ran through the plan in her head, hoping and praying that everything would go the way it was supposed to.

But finally, after feeling as though her eyes would dry right out of their sockets from staring up at the ceiling and worrying, she drifted off, and she did not wake until her alarm sounded, the opening bars of her mother’s favorite song dragging her out of slumber.

She wanted to keep her eyes closed. They were so heavy, and layered heavily with grit, and her body was so warm and comfortable beneath her sheets.

But no. Now was not the time for sleep.

Now was the time to finally, finally act.


	6. Part IV

Every now and then, Bilbo experienced a pang of guilt and sadness over the large house she and her father rattled around in, just the two of them. Bungo Baggins had built Belladonna Took a home big enough for a veritable army of children.

Yet never once had he expressed any regrets over the small size of their family. Even so, Bilbo and Belladonna had known, and Bilbo shared in that sorrow. What would it have been like to grow up tripping over brothers and sisters? It sounded like such a joyous sort of chaos. Certainly there would have been some aggravation – Bilbo did value her privacy and the chance to wallow in her books, after all – but there would also have been an abundance of love. Of that, she was certain.

Instead, there was an overabundance of quiet and solitude.

It was one of the main reasons Bilbo still lived at home. The thought of her poor father, living in this great house all on his own, rather broke her heart.

Today, however, the size of her childhood home was a blessing. It allowed her to sort out the horrid mess her hair had become after drying in a tangled mass during the night, to dress, gather what supplies she needed, and slip out into the garage which held her car without once disturbing her father’s rest.

It was still dark out when she opened the garage door and pulled out onto the driveway, lending the early morning an even greater sense of the clandestine.

She reached for the button to resume playing her mother’s CD but stopped her hand’s progress and then returned it to the steering wheel. The world was too still, even for the dreamlike tones of Dido.

Not long after hitting the road, she pulled into the little drive-through of her favorite coffee shop. It was hardly more than the size of a matchbox, and almost painfully plain in its design, but the coffee and the pastries were divine. She ordered a spiced latte and a candied ginger and orange scone, paid, and waited the usual length of time it took for Mr. Butterbur to hand her what she ordered.

“Good morning,” she said, the pleasantry somewhat belated as she set her prizes aside and shifted gears, beginning the second leg of her drive to the headquarters at which she and the rest of her co-conspirators had spent much of the past several months.

When she pulled into her customary parking spot, she was unsurprised to see that she was the first to arrive. She had only left at such an unholy hour to avoid any interactions with her father which might force her to lie to him even more than she already had since this entire plot began.

She snagged her scone from the passenger side seat and retrieved her latte from the cup holder, the first tangy, spicy bite settling the almost queasy hunger she had not quite registered in her belly until it was soothed away. About halfway through, the sun began to make its first hesitant motions into the morning sky, and she finally felt that a little music might not be unwarranted. She pressed the necessary button and lowered the volume to barely above a whisper and then polished off the rest of her breakfast, the fat and the carbs doing more to ease her nerves than almost anything else would.

Dwalin and Nori arrived not long after Bilbo finished her breakfast. Bilbo turned off the music, shut off the engine, and got out, grabbing her purse before she joined them.

“Hey,” she said softly.

“Morning,” Dwalin said, which was about as much acknowledgement as could be expected from him so early in the day. He was more than alert enough for any potential danger, but conversation was something one could not ask of Dwalin until the sun was much higher in the sky. At any rate, the bulk of his attention was currently on disarming the alarm system and unlocking the door.

Looking slightly wired, Nori sidled up to Bilbo and wrapped an arm around her shoulders, dropping her vibrantly red head atop Bilbo’s much more subdued brown curls. “Hey, kiddo. Did you sleep at all?”

Bilbo did not answer at first, too busy soaking up Nori’s affection and trying to come up with something that did not make it sound as though she was too exhausted for today. Eventually, she settled on, “Yeah, I slept.”

“But not a lot.”

“…No,” she admitted. “No, not a lot. But I’m fine. What about you two?” she added, hoping to deflect Nori’s attention.

She should have known better.

Nori’s lips curled up in an openly self-satisfied grin. “Oh, we did just fine, once we finally decided it was time to sleep.”

The door to the garage opened in time with Bilbo’s disgusted groan as she remembered what Nori had said to her last night, and Nori’s delighted cackle trailed her inside the building.

“ _Ugh_. I hate you.”

“You _adore_ me,” Nori replied with the sort of easy certainty Bilbo both admired and envied – although on this point, her godmother could have no cause for doubt.

“Yeah, yeah.”

Together, the three of them worked to finish any last minute tasks that might make things go more smoothly and would keep them occupied enough that they wouldn’t wear holes in the concrete by pacing back and forth as they waited for the others to arrive.

They trickled in slowly, first Thorin, looking somber but alert, and then Ori, who seemed as wired as her sister, though for entirely different reasons, followed by Fili and Kili, the latter of which sported a truly impressive example of bedhead. As Fili walked to stand beside her, and Kili took his other side, Bilbo shot Kili a sympathetic glance. He shrugged, taking another sip of the coffee he’d brought with him. It did seem to perk him up the longer he pulled from it, so with any luck, he would more closely resemble a human being within the next hour.

Bifur and Bofur wandered in last, Bifur chattering emphatically about something or other in Spanish and Bofur nodding along, not even trying to conceal the fact that he was horrendously hungover, sporting a set of dark sunglasses and a hideous hat with what seemed suspiciously like pride.

“Alright,” Thorin said. “If any of you wish to walk out now, no one will think any less of you.”

A room full of unimpressed looks met this fresh bit of stupidity.

Thorin took in their silent, unanimous refusal and tilted his head as he nodded, which was as close to a shrug as he ever came. “Well, then. Let’s go over the plan one more time.”

“Seriously?” Bilbo demanded, conveniently forgetting that she had spent most the of last night and the wee hours of this morning doing exactly that.

“Seriously. Unless you’d like to stay out of this and let the rest of us handle it?” He held her gaze challengingly and waited for several beats until she looked down at her feet. “…No? That’s what I thought. So, the plan: Bofur will set off the small bomb he and Bifur placed in Smaug’s basement when they broke in last night while Ori temporarily disabled the security system,” he went on, nodding at Bilbo’s best friend.

“The explosion should be quiet and controlled enough that Smaug won’t hear it, since he has that basement soundproofed. It will start a small fire, triggering the sprinklers. At which time, I will be making it all look like a glitch in the fire alarm system and preventing it from sending a call out to the local fire department,” Ori added. “Then I’ll shut down the security system tied into the gate surrounding Smaug’s house.”

“Just so,” Thorin said. “Smaug will vacate the building and wait for the fire fighters to arrive. Fili will walk up, acting the part of a concerned neighbor and provide a distraction, at which point the rest of us will enter through the back gate, put out the fire, remove the evidence of the bomb, and proceed to the safe through the back entrance to the basement.”

(Bilbo had been stunned when she first learned about the tunnel leading into the basement of Smaug’s mansion, though perhaps she shouldn’t have been. It took a special brand of paranoia for someone to evade Nori for so many years, especially given her resources at the NSA. The shock had worn off quickly after talking the logistics to death, and now it was simply a fact of life.

The sky was blue, grass was green, Smaug was a justifiably paranoid bastard who had a tunnel under his house.)

“At which point, I will unlock the safe,” Bilbo said dully.

“And then we will begin transferring all the gold to the trunks of the Mini Coopers,” Dwalin added.

“Dwalin will send me the signal and I will dispatch the police, who will respond to the call Smaug will place once he finally realizes that something is wrong, because the fire department will still be MIA,” Nori said, looking far too chipper in the sea of grimly determined people ranged around the garage. “The police who will have a warrant for his arrest, obtained from a local judge based on the footage from the murder of Radaghast Brown.”

“We’ll collect Fili, drive back to the garage, inventory the gold, and report what we find to the Mendes family. And then it’ll be over,” Bilbo concluded with a sigh. Fili nudged her gently, sending her a concerned glance, and she leaned against his side, murmuring, “I’m fine. Ignore me.”

He slung his arm around her shoulders, his voice even softer as he replied, “Not possible.”

Her cheeks heated, and she ducked her head.

“Alright,” Nori said, clapping her hands together, after shooting Bilbo a look to indicate that she had definitely marked the exchange, but would keep her peace about it for the time being. “We all know what we’re doing and where we’re supposed to be. Let’s get this show on the road.”

Ori walked over to Bilbo and leaned down to peck her on the cheek. “You’re gonna do fine, babe.” She reached up and ruffled Fili’s and Kili’s curls. “You too, boys.”

Fili made a face at his cousin, reaching up to return some order to the hair she’d disheveled. “Thanks for that, Ori.”

She grinned up at him. “No problem.” She walked off to say a few words to the rest of the friends and family who would be going out in the field while she and Nori remained at the garage to work their particular brands of magic.

“She looks all sweet and innocent,” Kili observed dryly before taking another sip of his coffee. “But she’s really just a huge brat.”

“Well, you wouldn’t know anything about that, now, would you?” Fili asked.

“Who, me?” Kili said, placing his hand over his heart and sending Fili his best doe-eyed look. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Sure, you don’t, Ki. Save it for Tauriel.”

Kili shook his head, trying to look downtrodden. “She never believes me either.”

“No, but she finds it cute, which is more than I can say.”

Thorin stepped over to their little cluster and pulled first Kili, who continued clutching at his coffee cup as though it were a lifeline, and then both Fili and Bilbo, since Bilbo didn’t feel inclined to move, into a tight embrace. “Be careful today,” Thorin told them. “I don’t know what I would do if anything happened to one of you.”

“As long as you’re careful, too,” Bilbo said.

Thorin cupped her cheek and laid a kiss upon her forehead, and with that, she knew their earlier tension was forgotten. “Always.” He looked at Kili and tilted his head towards the Mini Coopers. “Why don’t we take one last look at them?”

With a glance between Fili and Bilbo, Kili nodded. “Sure, Uncle. Sounds good.”

Fili chuckled as he watched his uncle and brother walk away. “Subtle, they are not.”

“Sweet of them, though.”

“Mmm.” He pulled her gently around until he could wrap his other arm around her as well, and then studied her for a moment. “I would kiss you, but it would feel too much like saying goodbye, and that’s not really how I want our first kiss to happen. Is that alright with you?”

“Very alright,” Bilbo assured him. “I don’t want to say goodbye, either, and I don’t particularly want to kiss you in front of most of your family. Later, though…”

“Later, when this is all over, I would very much like to take you somewhere.”

“Fili Durin, are you asking me out?” Bilbo asked, half teasing, and entirely hopeful. “I thought you were planning to wait until you finished your degree.”

“I thought I might make an exception to my rule in your case, if that’s alright.”

She huffed a little laugh. In what world would that be anything other than alright? The idea of Fili caring about her enough to break his own rules was incredibly gratifying if she were to be honest.

Instead of telling him that, she said, “Well, your timing is a little odd, but I suppose nobody’s perfect. Yes, I would love to go on a date with you.”

He pulled her closer, and she rested her forehead against his chest.

“That means we both have to be extra careful and come out of this in one piece,” Fili said. “No heroics, no last-minute changes to the plan.”

“I think Thorin would have a coronary if anyone tried to change The Plan,” Bilbo said wryly.

Fili jostled her gently. “Be nice. He just wants all of us to walk away from this.”

“I know. I’m sorry. I’m just – honestly, I don’t know what I am right now.”

“Nervous? Tired? Ready for this all to be over?”

“Yeah. All of that. But I know that’s no excuse. We’re all feeling like that – except for Nori. She’s happier than a clam.”

Speak of the devil: “Hey, lovebirds! You two ready to get this show on the road?”

Bilbo lifted her head from Fili’s chest and glared at her godmother, fond exasperation and mortification warring in her chest. She sent Nori a rather pointed hand gesture and then pulled away from Fili, patting him on the chest. “We’re going, we’re going.”

She made her way towards the Minis, while Fili strode towards the front door, since his truck was parked out in front of the garage. He was the only one out of the group who would be driving alone, in addition to being the one to distract Smaug, and if Bilbo thought about it for too long, she was liable to call the whole thing off.

They could still back out and simply let the authorities handle it. They had the warrant. There was no need for this.

But she couldn’t deny that she felt a sick sense of satisfaction at the thought of how Smaug would feel once he realized that not only had he been caught in a crime a last, he had also been robbed by the same people he had double-crossed so many years ago.

Payback was a bitch, and today, her name was Bilbo.

* * *

A few hours later, Bilbo heard the final snick of the safe and pulled her hand back as it came open. She reached for the handle, her gloved hand pulling the safe door open wide, and gazed at the mountain of gold coins, breathless with triumph and not a little bit of awe.

She shook her head at herself a beat later and then moved to the side. “Alright, guys. Let’s get this stuff out of here and back where it belongs.”

Together, Thorin, Dwalin, Kili, Bifur, and Bofur helped her to transfer the coins into the much smaller, much lighter safes in the backs of each of the Mini Coopers.

At one point, she and Thorin caught each other’s eyes and exchanged a long, eloquent look, all the relief and the vicious joy of finally avenging Belladonna Baggins plain to see.

When the last of the coins were loaded into the third Mini, Bilbo shut the safe and then nodded, satisfaction thick and warm in her veins.

The drive out through the back of the basement and the long, winding tunnel which eventually led to the surface felt longer than the drive in. Bilbo could feel every fraction of an inch separating her from Fili, and she didn’t have the heart to text or call him to find out whether the police had already arrived or not. If she tried to contact him and distracted him or exposed him somehow, she would never be able to live with herself, so she kept a death grip on the hand Thorin wasn’t using to drive and sat on her other hand to ward off the temptation of her cellphone, which felt as though it was burning a hole in the back pocket of her jeans.

Finally, they drove out into the midday sun and made their way to the lane leading up to the front of Smaug’s home.

As they drew closer, Bilbo could see several squad cars parked in a loose cluster around the driveway. Fili stood with two officers, giving a statement if the notepad and pen in one officer’s hands were anything to go by.

The three Mini Coopers parked and Bilbo threw herself out of the passenger side seat before running towards Fili. One policewoman tried to stop her, but the officer taking Fili’s statement – Officer Bowman; Bilbo recognized him now as the officer who had told her and her father about Belladonna’s death – told the female officer to let Bilbo pass.

Fili’s lip was bleeding, his clothes were rumpled and a bit dirty, his golden hair in wild disarray, and his knuckles were bruised and bloody. Bilbo frowned as she took his hands carefully into her own, studying the small wounds.

“You weren’t supposed to get hurt,” she said after Fili finished giving his statement and the officers excused themselves.

Fili shrugged. “Smaug wasn’t supposed to realize I was a Durin, either. Apparently, I’m too well-marked, even with the blonde hair.”

“Damn those devilishly good Durin looks,” Bilbo joked. “Good job on the citizen’s arrest, though. Do you always carry zip-ties in your pockets, or was today a special occasion?”

He shot her a little smirk. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”

Someone cleared his throat behind them, and Bilbo glanced back to see Thorin raising his eyebrows at the two of them while the rest of their friends and family watched them with knowing looks.

Bilbo coughed and let go of Fili’s hands, bringing one of hers up to make sure the fire she could feel was inside her cheeks instead an actual flame. “What are you lot looking at?”

“Oh, nothing, dear,” Bofur said, cheery as ever. “We just thought you might like to see Smaug being driven away in the back of a police car, and you’re about to lose your chance.”

Her eyes widening, Bilbo turned towards the cluster of police cars, searching for a familiar figure in each backseat. Finally, her gaze landed on a thick, dark, full head of curly hair, and high, sharp cheekbones.

At that moment, as though sensing her gaze, Smaug turned and looked out the window, catching her eye. Her heart seized at the murderous look on his face, but the fear was gone almost as soon as it arrived. Smaug was in cuffs and in police custody, and Bilbo was surrounded by the people who loved her and had helped her make that happen. Smaug was harmless, now. The dragon of her childhood defanged at last.

One by one, the cars started and pulled out of the driveway.

Bilbo kept her eyes on Smaug the entire time, her chin up, her back straight.

Then the squad cars took a turn out of her line of sight, and Bilbo deflated, letting out a sigh of relief that was fifteen years in coming.

 _We did it, mom_ , she thought. _We finally got him_. _I’m just sorry it took us so long_.

Her stomach growled, and Fili glanced down at her, his lips quirking up at the corners. “I think the others can handle the next part without us. What do you say we go and feed you?”

She looked at her simple blue jeans and black tank top, the latter of which was slightly damp from the sweat that had poured down her back while she worked to crack the code on the safe. “Yeah, that sounds good. For the record, though, this is not our date. This is just lunch.”

Fili laughed at her. “Of course, it isn’t. I’m not exactly date material right now, either. We’ll just go through the drive-through somewhere and pick something up to take back to the garage for everyone else.”

Even though she knew she would see all of them again in under an hour, Bilbo gave Thorin, Kili, Dwalin, Bofur, and Bifur each a hug before letting them get back in the Mini Coopers and drive off. Then she took Fili’s hand and walked a little ways down the road towards where he had parked his truck.

As they drove off, she glanced back towards the mansion, imagining herself going back and burning the whole place to the ground. But aside from her desire to avoid an arson charge, there was no need to destroy Smaug’s home.

They had already taken everything that mattered away from him anyway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I may write an epilogue for this piece - Smaug's sentencing, Bilbo and Fili's first date, or something else along those lines - but for now, it just feels good to finally have this thing finished. Leaving it hanging like this for so long was really bugging me, and I have several other WIPs that I would like to wrap up as well.
> 
> I hope you like how this one ended, even though you don't actually get to _see_ Smaug taken town. A writer of action scenes, I am not.
> 
> Thanks for reading this story, and if you enjoyed it, please drop me a line to let me know. :)


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